Coaticook hospital cuts back emergency room hours

In light of ongoing staff shortages, the emergency department at the Coaticook department will be closed in the evenings and overnight from Wednesday, July 14, until Monday, August 16.

“The medical coverage of the emergency department in Coaticook has been precarious for a number of years,” said Dr. Colette Bellavance, Director of Professional Services with the CIUSSS de l’estrie-chus, noting that the added pressure of the COVID-19 pandemic proved to be too much this year for

a department that was already straining to fill its shifts on a regular basis.

It is in a bit to relieve some of that pressure, Dr. Bellavance said, that the department hours have been cut back to 8 a.m. to 6 p.m.

“It is important to be able to give our medical personnel a time to rest” the director said, explaining that the healthcare authority plans to have a larger number of ambulances on call in the area during the off-hours and that anyone with emergency medical needs during that time will be transferred to the nearest open department in Sherbrooke.

Chantal Gariépy, Director of General services with the CIUSSS de l’estrie-chus, said that ambulances will begin being redirected on July 13, but underlined the fact that there will be no changes to the availability of medical testing or imaging services in Coaticook during the period of altered hours.

Gariépy encouraged anyone experiencing a medical emergency to continue to call 911, or go directly to the nearest hospital outside of Coaticook for assistance.

Asked about whether there is any concern that shunting patients from one overloaded ER to another will simply cause a cascading issue, Bellavance said that Coaticook’s emergency department sees an average of 50 patients in a 24 hour period, most of whom come during the day.

“There are about six or seven at night,” the doctor said, adding that 80 per cent of the Coaticook ER visitors over the last two years have been among the lowest priority of care in the triage system.

To speculation that the reduced hours might be extended beyond August 16, the director explained that several doctors are due to return from leave in August and a new one is due to start. As a result, even though roughly half of the shifts over the month-long reduced hours period could not be filled, the CIUSSS team expects that things will be able to shift back to normal as planned on the 16.